The booming US economy and the belief of the Clinton Administration and members of Congress that there is a staggering shortage of high tech workers has led Congress to consider lifting or removing the cap on the annual admission of H-1B nonimmigrant visa holders.
H-1B visas are temporary visas that allow persons in specialty occupations, normally those requiring a bachelors degree or higher, to enter the US and work for up to six years. A sizeable portion of the 65,000 annual allotment of H-1B visas are used by workers in the high tech industry.
In past years, there was little concern over the annual limit because it had never been met. However, the limit was hit 11 months into the 1997 fiscal year (which ran from October 1, 1996 to September 30, 1997) and many companies found themselves having to wait several weeks longer to bring in new workers. New figures show the limit will be reached much earlier this year. The INS Headquarters Adjudications staff has informed the American Immigration Lawyers Association that as of February 20th, 35,747 H-1B visa petitions have been approved. At this pace, the annual H-1B quota will be reached in the early summer, several months in advance of the 1999 fiscal year.
Last month, the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on the question of changing the H-1B rules. Testimony was heard from a variety of interests promoting a number of different strategies.
According to Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America, “Access to the IT industry’s basic commodity – skilled people – has reached a perilous state.” Miller referred to a recent ITAA study that found that 346,000 information technology positions in all industries are currently unfilled nationwide. The study echoes a recent article in the Electronic Engineering Times which placed the unemployment rate for electrical engineers in the 1997 fourth quarter at 0.4%. Representatives of Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and Texas Instruments all testified that while the first preference is to hire domestic workers, the labor shortage is too severe and that companies must look toward foreign workers to bridge the gap. Cypress Semiconductor Corp. and Intel have also been pushing for a lifting of the cap.
The high tech industry has found an ally in Senate Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Spencer Abraham. According to Abraham:
“If American companies cannot find home-grown talent and if they cannot bring talent to this country some of them will move their operations overseas, taking American jobs with them. That is why I am going to use my position to propose that we increase the number of higher-skilled temporary workers we allow into the United States.”
Abraham stated that he does not have a figure in mind, but the Clinton Administration reportedly plans to push for an increase of 50% or more.
The movement to increase the H-1B limit, or remove the limit altogether, has some powerful supporters. In addition to the President and Chairman Abraham, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and California Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein have publicly stated their interest in raising the cap. The Immigration and Naturalization Service and the US Department of Commerce have also apparently weighed in on the side of lifting the limit.
But support for raising the limit is far from unanimous. Several organizations have come out disputing both the notion that there is a shortage of workers and that the best way to fill any perceived shortage is by hiring foreign workers. Opponents of raising the cap include the AFL-CIO, the US Department of Labor, the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the American Engineering Association, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
John Reinart, president of IEEE, told the Congressional Subcommittee that salary studies fail to support the notion of a widespread shortage of technical professionals. Robert Lerman of the Urban Institute agreed arguing that if there were a real shortage, there would be a sharp rise in wages. Others argue that high tech firms prefer to hire cheap foreign workers rather than more experienced, and, consequently, more expensive computer programmers.
FAIR, probably the best known anti-immigration advocacy organization, criticized the Senate Judiciary Committee for being “totally unbalanced, biased and designed to fit pre-designed conclusions.” The organization criticized the high tech industry for not wanting to raise wages or re-train Americans.
Proponents of lifting the cap responded by noting that while retraining workers may be a laudable long-term goal, the need for skilled workers is immediate and cannot wait for workers that might not be available for several years. Proponents of lifting the cap also responded by criticizing the US educational system. President Clinton recently expressed concern at one study that found that US high school seniors are among the industrial world’s least prepared in math and science. Also, Texas Instruments’ Stephen Leven told the Committee that image-conscious American children perceive high tech workers as not being “cool.” Without a dramatic change in the image of high tech workers, high school students will not choose these careers.
And one of the most powerful arguments favoring raising the cap – that companies will simply move the work overseas to places with a large supply of qualified workers (such as India or Israel) – has largely been left unanswered by the measure’s opponents.
Between removing the cap altogether and doing nothing, others have offered compromise plans. Some propose raising the cap, but cutting the number of years on the visa from six to three (this cut to three years was proposed and then cut out of the 1996 Immigration Act). The Labor Department is said to favor a proposal to add provisions to the program that would prohibit hiring foreigners in the wake of layoffs.
The Labor Department and Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Immigration Subcommittee favor an approach that would keep the cap at its current level, but would give priority within the quota to industries that have shortages of skilled workers. Such a proposal would be extremely controversial, particularly among the nation’s universities. A great number of universities heavily rely on H-1B workers to fill faculty positions in areas that would not be covered by the quotas.
Perhaps the most interesting and far-sighted idea comes from the National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses. The NACCB proposes a modest, temporary increase in the cap. However, it proposes a new market-oriented “portable” H-1B visa that is designed to prevent employers from using foreign workers to depress wages. According to the NACCB, although the initial entry of H-1B foreign workers should continue to be sponsored by a US employer, after the worker has been here for a certain amount of time (the NACCB cites six months as an example), the H-1B visa should become “portable” and should “follow the worker.” This would allow these foreign workers to answer job ads, change employers and continue working in the US for the duration of their visas without having to go through the H-1B application process all over again as is now required by the current rules. The benefit of this proposal, according to the NACCB, is that it would force employers to compete for foreign and American workers in the same way and force companies to pay workers the true prevailing wage for the position.
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